Hobby Lobby’s $1.3 million Obamacare loophole

Hobby Lobby’s $1.3 million Obamacare loophole

WASHINGTON (CNN) — By Friday Hobby Lobby would have racked up $14.3 million dollars in fines from the IRS for bucking Obamacare. The company is facing $1.3 million dollars a day in fines for each day they choose not to comply with a piece of the health care law that was set to trigger for them on January 1.

The craft store chain announced in December because of religious objections they would face the fines for not providing certain types of birth control through their company health insurance.

In keeping with the great American tax tradition, they may have found a loophole.

The penalty was set to go into effect on the day the company’s new health care plan went into effect for the year.

Peter M. Dobelbower, general counsel for Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. said in a statement released through the Becket Fund that, “Hobby Lobby discovered a way to shift the plan year for its employee health insurance, thus postponing the effective date of the mandate for several months.”

The statement continued that “Hobby Lobby does not provide coverage for abortion-inducing drugs in its health care plan. Hobby Lobby will continue to vigorously defend its religious liberty and oppose the mandate and any penalties.”

Last month Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor rejected the company’s appeal for a temporary relief from the steep fines while their case made its way through the lower courts.

Hobby Lobby announced a day after the ruling that it “will continue to provide health insurance to all qualified employees. To remain true to their faith, it is not their intention, as a company, to pay for abortion-inducing drugs.”

In September, Hobby Lobby and affiliate Mardel, a Christian bookstore chain, sued the federal government for violating their owners’ religious freedom and ability to freely exercise their religion.

The lawsuit says the companies’ religious beliefs prohibit them from providing insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs. As of August 2012, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare, requires employer-provided health care plans to provide “all Food and Drug Administration approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity,” according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Churches and houses of worship are exempt from the regulation and a narrow exemption was added for nonprofit religious employers whose employees “primarily share its religious tenets” and who “primarily serve persons who share its religious tenets.”

The Internal Revenue Service regulations now say that a group health care plan that “fails to comply” with the Affordable Care Act is subject to an “excise tax” of “$100 per day per individual for each day the plan does not comply with the requirement.” It remains unclear how the IRS would implement and collect the excise tax.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment on the high court’s move last month.

White House officials have long said they believe they have struck an appropriate compromise between religious exemptions and women’s health. The White House has not commented specifically on the Hobby Lobby case.

The Oklahoma City-based Hobby Lobby chain has more than 500 stores that employ 13,000 employees across 42 states, and takes in $2.6 billion in sales. It is still privately held by CEO and founder David Green and members of his family.

“The foundation of our business has been, and will continue to be strong values, and honoring the Lord in a manner consistent with biblical principles,” a statement on the Hobby Lobby website reads, adding that one outgrowth of that is the store is closed on Sundays to give its employees a day of rest.

The Hobby Lobby case is just one of many before the courts over the religious exemption aspects of the law. The case represents by far the biggest for-profit group challenging the health care mandate.

Part of the reason Sotomayor rejected their appeal to the Supreme Court she wrote was because their case is still pending in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

A spokesperson for the Becket Fund said on Friday a date has yet to be set for the case to be heard in the 10th Circuit.